The window ledge had inch-thick dust that went up in clouds if you moved. Gracie cautiously climbed onto the ledge and peered through curiously though quickly withdrew her head from the overwhelming smell. She took great gulps of the fresh sea air and poked through again but this time she was ready. She pinched her … More The Birdman’s Cottage

My name is Jaff. I live in number 5 Moonlight Avenue in 99 Martian House. This is the story of how I beat my annoying teacher Mrs. Thinman. I am nine years old and what you humans call an alien. I go to school in a floating classroom and live in a levitating house above … More A Martian Triumph

Green is the colour of the lean string bean Which I wash squeaky clean. Green is the colour of the crocodile Who always makes me run a couple miles. Italian hills are always bright green; I’ve been there and it’s what I’ve seen. Green is the colour of leaves on a glower, So is the … More My colour poem

I have not been a model of blogging activity in 2016. Now I’ve been forced to write something because the Foxcub has sent me a poem (see next post). Since you can boast about your niece, I think, without sounding dreadful: she’s been told she has a writing age of 13 (she’s 7). (In contrast, … More Bikes and dragons

Then, out of the corner of her eye she spotted a frisbee. Gingerly, she walked over to the Frisbee, all the time keeping her eye on the bush. She picked it up carefully and walked nervously back to the reassuring presence of Anil. Next, with more confidence she aimed the Frisbee at the bush. The … More A Snake in the Garden

In June 1938, my great-aunt Katharine set off from Dorset in the south-west of England to the boat train at Tilbury on the Thames, from where she sailed to Tangiers. A month later she was in Nairobi, staying with her brother Cenydd and his wife Alison, my grandparents. They had settled in Kenya twenty years before, in a … More An African Journey

July, school holidays. The foxcub and her brood have left the 45 degree heat of The Sandpit to return home to England; we remain in Sydney with a short trip to Kangaroo Valley. The big skies above the Hume Highway remind me why, when I first came to Australia, I fell for it – its … More Home and away

Once upon a time there lived a little girl called Miranda. She lived with her father in a small cottage on the edge of a forest. Her mother was dead. One day her father decided to go surfing, Miranda was left at home. She was a marvelously adventurous girl and she was bored. So she … More How Miranda Got Her Magic Finger

There’s a playground in Wales in the UK called The Land, where kids are encouraged to light fires in tin drums and their parents are discouraged from its vicinity. It’s a place in the country where what looks like a big, muddy rubbish dump has been purposely set in the middle of a field as … More The Land